Project Lore

One of the perils of doing anything publicly is the risk of being labeled "Stupid". Ignorance we can handle, stupidity not so much. Is there a difference? You bet. Ignorance is the absence of knowledge. How do rogues do an attack rotation? We have no idea; we're ignorant about rogue-mechanics. Stupidity is acting in a manner inconsistent with known facts. We know not to pull aggro from our main tank. If we were to start firing before the main tank has established aggro, we'd be acting stupidly. There is a fine line between ignorance and stupidity and that's "Unconventional". A hunter who melees because he knows no other way is Ignorant. A hunter who knows the proper method of playing a hunter who chooses to melee his way while leveling is Unconventional. So also would be a player who eschews killing mobs while leveling -- known as pacifist-leveling -- or someone who refuses to wear gear while leveling, just for the challenge of doing it. Being unconventional is fine, as long as you don't affect other people without their knowledge and consent. For example, it is known by most hunters that bringing a level seventy-five pet to a heroic instance will be gimping his own damage-output. It is also well known that the fastest way to level a hunter-pet from seventy-five to eighty is in heroic instances. A single heroic Violet Hold will usually give a pet almost an entire level. Bringing a level seventy-five pet to a heroic with the goal of leveling it quickly, but seeking the permission of the rest of the raid before the raid starts, is Unconventional. Bringing a level seventy-five pet to a heroic because you didn't know there are level seventy-nine pets available for immediate taming is Ignorant. Bringing a level seventy-five pet to a heroic and without caring about the feelings of the rest of the raid is Stupid. Personally, we are ignorant about just about everything there is to know about tanking and healing. When we bellow at our tank, "Make more threat!" we are very fortunate she doesn't yell back, "Why don't you, in your infinite wisdom, tell me just how you expect me to accomplish that!" Because if she did, we'd stammer and stutter and exclaim, "Just... you know, get it angry. Hit it, whatever, right? Threat! Do it!" And she'd reach through the Internet and squash us for our ignorance. However we are not stupid, and we know that regardless of how the tank is generating threat, it is our responsibility to not pull aggro from the main tank. Our ignorance of tanking-mechanics can be compensated with our knowledge of hunter-mechanics. How do we compensate for a tank not generating as much threat as we'd like? * Cast Misdirection at every opportunity. * Feign Death before we overtake the tank on the mob's threat list. * Just chill out and decrease our DPS until the tank has a solid threat-lead. If we were to refuse to Misdirect, Feign Death, and reduce our DPS when the tank is having difficulties maintaining aggro, we would not be "teaching the tank a lesson" by intentionally pulling aggro. No, we'd be Stupid. Eliminating ignorance requires two people: an apt teacher and a willing student. Eliminating stupidity is the job of just one person: the stupid one. You can encourage, enlighten, educate, and cajole a person towards not being stupid, but ultimately, it's his decision. But what else can you do? You can learn to differentiate between ignorance and stupidity yourself and react accordingly. Your PUG is having a hard time in Culling of Stratholme because the priest keeps running ahead of the party? Remind him that the paladin tank makes a wonderful Undead battering ram. Teach the priest that standing on top of, or slightly behind, the paladin tank will basically guarantee the priest's survival. If the priest adjusts his tactics appropriately, you'll have eliminated a little ignorance from the game and probably ensured the success of your run. But if the priest says nothing and keeps running amok, you'll know that you're dealing with Stupid and it's time to abandon-party. Ignorance, stupidity, and unconventionality are big parts of Warcraft. Learning to modify your behavior when confronting these characteristics is key to your progression and fun in the game, (and in real life too).

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MMO-Champion has posted a handful of new changes that are coming, and they believe that they are coming this week. That would mean that during tomorrow morning's weekly maintenance period, we'll all have to download Patch 3.0.9. There are a few tweaks, including a bunch of changes to Arcane Mages. They're also nerfing cast time increasing debuffs and increasing rogue damage. Check out all of the changes below. Druid

• Ferocious Bite: This ability now only uses up to 30 energy in addition to its base cost.

Hunter

• Kindred Spirits (Beast Mastery): This talent now grants 20% pet damage at max rank.
• Serpent's Swiftness (Beast Mastery): This talent now grants 20% pet attack speed at max rank.

Pets

• Lava Breath now reduces the target's casting speed by 25%, down from 50%.
• Poison Spit now reduces the target's casting speed by 25%, down from 50%.

Mage

• Arcane Power now increases damage and mana cost by 10%, cooldown reduced to 1 minute. (Note: The spell is actually different in game and increases damage and mana costs by 20% with a 2 minutes cooldown. However it would probably be better to wait until servers are online to confirm that.)
• Arcane Power and Presence of Mind now share a category cooldown. Arcane Power causes a 15 second cooldown. Presence of Mind, once consumed, causes a 1.5 second cooldown.
• Arcane Flows now reduces the cooldown of Presence of Mind, Arcane Power and Invisibility by 15/30%.
• Presence of Mind: The cooldown has been reduced to 2 minutes, (down from 3.)
• Slow (Arcane): now increases cast time by 30%, down from 60%.
• Glyph of Arcane Missiles -- Increases the critical strike damage bonus of Arcane Missiles by 25%. (Old - Increases the range of Arcane Missiles by 5 yards.)
• Glyph of Mana Gem -- Increases the mana recieved from using a mana gem by 40%. (Up from 10%)
• Glyph of Arcane Blast -- Increases the damage from your Arcane Blast buff by 3%. (Down from 5%)

Paladin

• The duration on all Seals has been increased to 30 minutes and can no longer dispelled.
• Divine Plea: The amount healed by your spells is reduced by 50% (up from 20%) but the effect can no longer be dispelled.
• Sanctified Seals: This talent no longer affects dispel resistance, but continues to affect crit chance.
• Glyph of Holy Light -- Your Holy Light grants 10% of its heal amount to up to 5 friendly targets within 8 yards of the initial target. (Down from 20 yards, Tooltip text fix, was already hotfixed to 8 yards in game)
• Glyph of Seal of Righteousness -- Increases the damage done by Seal of Righteousness by 10%. (Old - Reduces the cost of your Judgement spells by 10% while Seal of Righteousness is active.)

Priest

• Inner Fire duration has been increased to 30 minutes and can no longer dispelled.

Rogue

• Hunger for Blood (Assassination): Now increases damage 5% per stack, (up from 3%.)
• Mind Numbing Poison now reduces cast time by 30%, down from 60%.
• Mutilate damage will now do 20% increased damage against poisoned targets, down from 50%.
• Slice and Dice: This ability now increases melee attack speed by 40%, up from 30%.

Shaman

• Glyph of Windfury Weapon -- Increases the chance per swing for Windfury Weapon to trigger by 2%. (Down from 5%)

Warlock

• Curse of Tongues: Now increases the casting time of all spells by 25% (Rank 1) and 30% (Rank 2), down from 50% and 60%.

The Obsidian Sanctum

• Changed the color of the fissure in the Obsidian Sanctum to be more visually distinct.

User Interface

• The "GM wishes to speak with you" alert/button, at the top of the screen, has been changed so that addons do not obscure it.
• A clickable chat message has been added that duplicates the GM alert/button.
• When a GM wishes to speak with you the Help Request minibar button will glow.

Bug Fixes

• Fixed an issue where players using nVidia 3D glasses were unable to see spell cooldowns.
• Fixed a software mouse cursor bug that was causing the mouse curser to disappear from view when over certain UI elements.
• Fixed a player movement error in which other players were appearing to move erratically when traveling beside them.

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To celebrate the 2008 Olympic Games, Blizzard has implemented a couple of fun new rewards for competition in battlegrounds. There is a new tabard that is pretty much a participation ribbon, it is a white tabard with four colored rings on it. In order to get it, all you need to do is run any battleground once and stay until the marks are awarded. You don't have to win, but you need to stay till the bitter end. Afterwards, you'll get the tabard in the mail. Easy, right? In a year, it might be a rare item that you can show off to all of those people who got recruited by their friends who just wanted an exclusive mount. Something that may end up being a little rarer than the tabard is the vanity pet. It is a very cool looking chinese type dragon, and you can summon it using the Gold Medal that you have a chance to receive when you win any battleground. Check your mail after each win if you're one of the many pet collectors. Now you've got even more incentive to keep running those BGs. Don't forget to read up on the basic strategies for each battleground that SaintGermain posted a while back, if you really want a chance at winning that gold medal.

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I'm starting to think maybe Dorkins isn't buying the highest quality meats. Now don't get me wrong, I enjoy the smoked talbuk venison and all. Whenever I'm chillin with my buddies in a raid, though, it seems their owners always give them clefthoof ribs, and damnit they smell so f***ing delicious!!! Look, i'm a level 70 and as far as stats are concerned the smoked talbuk venison makes me just as happy (+35 happiness per tick) as the clefthoof ribs (+35 happiness per tick), but for some reason the price difference makes me feel like I'm getting gyped. I mean Dorkins only pays 56 silver for a stack of 5 smoked talbuk venison, whereas a stack of 5 clefthoof ribs is 80 silver. The venison may not recover as much health as the ribs, but I only eat the food for the happiness. Now, I know it saves him money and all and ultimately smoked talbuk venison is the smarter choice, but still I wish he would splurge a little and hook me up with the good stuff.

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When you absolutely, positively, unequivocally have to kick huge monster ass, then there is no substitute for the "I WIN" macro. Each class can create their own version of this tasty little treat, but I will show you a version that I use specifically as a Beast Master hunter. First create a macro, choose a name (I WIN) or (Kick Ass) or (You Die), then a button graphic. Then in the command line, copy and paste or just type the following:

/use 13
/cast Bestial Wrath
/cast Intimidation
/cast Rapid Fire
/petattack

The first line relates to your trinkets, "13" is the command for your first trinket slot. So make sure your usable trinket is in this slot (second from the bottom on the right of your character pane), examples of trinkets suited for this are Bladefist's Breadth, Bloodlust Brooch, Berserker's Call, or any other badass USEable trinket you have. The rest is pretty self explanatory. Now put this (I WIN) button anywhere on your action bar and ONLY click it if you are positive you can handle kicking more ass than you have ever kicked. Oh and have feign death ready, you will probably pull some serious aggro "Click" YEEEEEEEEEEHAAAAAAAAA!!!!

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Wowhead continues to prove itself a great resource for players looking for the latest information on the Beta of Wrath of the Lich King, and today Wowhead gives us a pet talent calculator and a great list of achievements. Looking through the pet talents, I find Heart of the Phoenix to be great for a certain hunter who always seems to complain about his pet dying. Other than that, there are a bunch of interesting things that hunters will be able to tweak about their pets, and though some of the talents are similar to old ones, the new stuff shows a lot of creativity on Blizzard's part. When I first heard of the Achievement system being implemented, I figured I would just let the achievements come to me as I played. But now I can see some people might really go out of their way to get some. Look at this one. I know someone who might just be crazy enough to try it. I definitely see a lot of things that I expected in the list, and I hope its going to expand even more from the nearly 650 already there. I also really hope that when someone unlocks an achievement, there is some crazy sparkley stuff that happens, visible to everyone with an announcement to all in the vicinity, like the discovery system has but even bigger. After all, World of Warcraft is a social game, and what good is a social game if you can't show off when you get something cool?

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Me: There are five men in this group right? You: Right Me: No, wrong You: Wrong? Me: Yeah wrong. You see that huge white tiger standing next to me? You: Yeah Me: That's f***ing Jimmy and he's my pet and he's part of this group, so that makes six of us. You: Oooookay. So what? Me: So what?!?! So he is just as important as everyone else. And because I'm a Beast Master he provides almost 35% of my f***ing dps. Not only that, but with Ferocious Inspiration everytime he crits a mob in the face, we as a group gain 3% to all damage! And trust me he crits a lot. You: Fine he the sixth man, your a Beast Master he helps your dps, and give us some Ferocious stuff. Now, why are you telling me this? Me: Because you're the healer a**hole!! Just like anyone else in the group, if you see him dying, throw a heal his way. Got it? You: Yeah, whatever. Me: A**hole.

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I swear to all that is holy, including paladins and priests, if you screw with Dorkins...I will turn red, grow really big, then rip your face off and defecate on your dead corpse. Are We Clear?! That is a warning to everybody, including you party members. Man I need some meat.

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